[OSM-legal-talk] CTs and the 1 April deadline

[John Smith]

On 6 January 2011 10:11, Tobias Knerr <osm at tobias-knerr.de> wrote:
> This would not be better at all, it would render the whole idea of
> relicensing via Contributor Terms pointless.

This aregument you keep stating about people thinking the data is
owned by people isn't the full store, in fact I think it was Anthony
that pointed this out the other day about people collaborating on a
movie project and having a certain expectation about the licensing at
the end of it, however the CTs introduce, with respect to licensing,
an uncertainty about the license the project will operate in future.

Or to put this in context, how many people would contribute to a GPL
project that has a CT with a similar relicensing clause, meaning to
allow future contributors to make all kinds of licensing decisions on
behalf of those that laid the ground work to switch to a BSD license.

Grant and others keep going on about reading the spirit of the CT more
than the wording, but at present OSM uses a share a like license
(similar to GPL) but might switch to a PD/BSD license in future, this
uncertainty will turn many in the software world off, as I keep asking
why is the majority of OSM software so proudly offered under GPL and
not BSD if you want things to be future proofed?

Why is asking OSM(F) for some license certainty such a bad thing, it's
this kind of statement that would define if you like, the types of
people willing to contribute. Take for example Frederik's post a
couple of months ago about no longer contributing to OSM if it wasn't
even remotely possible for OSM to be PD in future. Then you have the
new sign up stats, I'm not sure how many have ticked the PD box, but
I'm guessing most don't bother to read what that tick box is for and
tick it because they're so used to "I agree" boxes at the bottom of
sign up forms, and not expecting that it does something completely
different.

Alternatively you also have SteveC who has made comments about not
supporting a change to a license without share a like.